The Mom Stop: Friends despite political divide

Tuesday

Jul 25, 2017 at 9:40 AMJul 25, 2017 at 9:41 AM

Lydia Seabol Avant More Content Now

I was sitting on the floor of a dorm room during my freshman year of college, watching TV with a new friend when the topic of politics came up. It was the fall of 1999 and Bill Clinton was still president. The Monica Lewinsky controversy had erupted only year before, and the political national scene was heating up again as the 2000 presidential race was barely a year away

Admittedly, at 18-years-old, I knew nothing about politics.

This was before 9/11, back in the easygoing days when I was too young to remember the Cold War and I barely remembered watching the start of the Gulf War on TV as a kid. The Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine shooting were events that were just coming into view as my generation — the earliest millennial generation — became teenagers and young adults.

So I was thrown for a moment when my college best friend asked me who I would vote for president in next election. Up to that point in my life, politics were rarely discussed. Social media hadn’t been invented yet.

“You CANNOT be a Democrat,” my friend told me. “You are a sorority girl at Alabama.”

Funny how things have changed over the last 18 years.

That college friend, the one who is my polar political opposite, is still my best friend to this day. Last week, I piled my 8-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son into the family van and we drove 7 hours to rural Arkansas to visit that friend and her family, a trip that has become sort of an annual trek. We spent the afternoons out by her backyard pool as the kids dove off the diving board and played with the Nerf guns, at night we watched romantic comedies and drank margaritas the same way we did when we were in college. Our kids think they are cousins and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

Over the last two decades we’ve accepted each other for who we are, including our political differences. We were roommates in college, and we each provided the other with a shoulder to cry on when a boyfriend relationship didn’t work out. The first time I got drunk, I was with her — and haven’t drank Long Island iced teas since. It was when I lived with her that I got my first dog, a beloved cocker spaniel who would be my constant companion until only 2 years ago. I’m still thankful that when that dog chewed up her coffee table and peed on her bed, she took it with relative ease.

We were bridesmaids in each others weddings, the first person we called when found out we were pregnant — sometimes, she knew before my own husband. When I had my first miscarriage, the day after surgery I packed a suitcase and drove to Charleston where she lived at the time. She let me cry for days and it was exactly what I needed.

More recently, she’s become the person I can vent about parenthood to, whether it’s about car seats and diapers, ADHD, or repeating kindergarten. She’s the person I called in terror last year when my kid had lice and I didn’t know what to do — I was too mortified to tell anyone else.

Besides my husband, she’s probably the person who knows me best in the world, and I’m so grateful for it.

But social media and politics almost got in the way of that, this year. Through our 18-year friendship, we’ve been able to accept that we are political opposites and know that for the sake of our friendship, we shouldn’t talk politics. I’m not going to change her mind, she’s not going to change mine, and so we love each other for our differences. Instead, we talk about everything else.

But as divisive as politics has been this year, as raging as political discussions have gotten on social media, and as the divide in this country has widened, it also got between me and my best friend. It almost tore us apart. There were tears, angry messages and babbling apologies. We had to make a conscious decision not to let politics ruin us.

For as wide as the political gap is in this country right now, for as tense as political discussion between sides has gotten, we need to be able to look past the differences and recognize the things we have in common. This country needs to come together, whether it’s elected leaders sitting on opposite sides of the aisles, or two old friends who decide that divisive politics aren’t worth ruining something great.In the end, we might realize that the two sides have more in common than originally thought.

— Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at lydia.seabolavant@tuscaloosanews.com.